Satanic Panic is Back

So, here we are, in the year 2022, and what do I read in the news? That QAnon is pushing a Satanic child predation conspiracy to destroy the political careers of politicians who are not extreme enough in their support of the former president or who happen to be Democrats, with a big “D” next to their name on the ballot. As an elderly Witch and ritual magician with a long memory, I can recall something similar to this event happening back in the 1980's. I view this occurrence with a bit of horror and also shock at how stupid and misinformed some people are in our nation.

A Satanic Panic, also known as a moral panic, is where individuals or groups are allegedly accused of holding forbidden rites where children are ritually and sexually abused, or even murdered and cannibalized. It is a form of the persecution of stigmatized others lacking validity or any basis in fact, and it relies on the sinister effects of a conspiracy, media manipulation and public gullibility. It is the myth where people believe in the double nature of supposedly good and upright individuals who are allegedly perpetrating untold acts of evil against innocent children. Typically, such accusations are made against individuals who represent a social minority or who are unable to defend themselves. It is similar to the pogroms against the Jews, Catholics, Blacks, Irish, Mormons, Asians, socialists and communists. It represents the basest form of fear mongering and persecuting otherwise innocent individuals who are powerless to prevent their victimization.

The so-called Satanic Panic of the 1980's started with a book titled “Michelle Remembers” written by Michelle Smith and her psychiatrist husband, Lawrence Pazder, and published in 1980. In the book she luridly describes her experiences as a child being ritually abused in Satanic rituals, although it is never claimed in the book to be her own personal experiences. Her husband even coined the term ritual abuse, or RA, and began a career promoting the belief that ritual abuse was a wide-spread social phenomenon. They gave lectures and training to law enforcement agencies even though there was no real proof that such events were actually happening. The idea of a Satanic conspiracy and the horrors of ritual abuse or even the murder of children caught the imagination of some people, particularly those who were religiously conservative and intellectually compromised.  However, by the 1990's, Pazder had already assisted law enforcement agencies in the investigation of over 1,000 cases, ensuring that the seeds of these unfounded beliefs and accusations were promoted as factual truths.

This book was very likely responsible for child welfare case workers being advised to begin to more deeply investigate the possibilities of ritual abuse based on State directed guidelines, and law enforcement agencies were also keen to investigate the possibility of Satanic Ritual Abuse, or SRA, as it was called. A social phenomenon was created by this book and the seriousness of the allegations, coupled with people’s imaginations, made others come forth to admit that they had been ritually abused as children, and some parents admitted to it when pressured by police and accepting plea deals from aggressive district attorneys. Suddenly, this phenomenon became endemic in Canada, the U.S. and the UK. All of this was happening without a shred of actual evidence. It was based on dubious accusations, hear-say, and rumors. In many cases it was a modern version of the Witchcraft scares and persecutions of the pre-modern era.  

The most notable of these prosecutions was the California McMartin Preschool case, where the owner and director (Peggy McMartin and Ray Buckey) in 1983 were accused of engaging in Satanic Ritual Abuse. I recall this time quite well, and the two defendants were given terrible press and depicted as evil Satanists who were secretly engaging in the ritual and sexual abuse of the children placed in their care. This was a highly sensationalized event that got national coverage and was played in the news for months. Even author Michelle Smith got into the fray, counseling the parents of the children who had been supposedly abused. Of course, the prosecution had little hard evidence for all of the counts of sexual abuse alleged against the two figure heads (they had dropped the “Satanic Ritual” part of allegations) , and after three years they were finally acquitted of all charges. Their lives and the pre-school business they ran was utterly destroyed, and all it did was fan the fires of a sensational conspiracy that seemed to have a life all of its own. These conspiracy allegations were taken so seriously that they inspired the U.S. Congress to investigate and to promote bills to protect children against a phenomenon that had no basis in fact or reality.

Child abuse is a real factor throughout the world, but a conspiracy based Satanic Ritual Abuse underground movement is the stuff of fantasy and nightmares. It has no basis in fact. By the early 1990's the press had grown skeptical of the SRA phenomenon and some brave individuals in the psychiatric and law enforcement academic and organizations disputed the claims and argued that there was no hard evidence that SRA was actually a problem requiring legal and government intervention. The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, combined with the University of California, studied over 12,000 cases and found no evidence of an organized movement. The Satanic Panic, which had ultimately captivated and horrified many nations was based on nothing more than hysteria and superstition. The sad effect of this Satanic Panic was that it deflected from the real problem of child abuse, and abrogated resources that would have better spent on a real endemic social problem instead of a phantom menace.  

That period of time did have an impact on the Pagan and Witchcraft communities. As a means of safe-guarding our communities, some parents decided not to allow their children to attend public or pagan festival gatherings. We as a community became a lot more cautious and scrutinized potential new members to our community, fearing that some local law enforcement would target us and plant informers who would lie or distort what was happening at Pagan or Wiccan gatherings. We also became more adverse to any form of Satanism, and even barred some who were inclined to diabolatry in a gothic guise to attend our gatherings and associate with us as invited equals. It was, overall, a sad time to be a Witch or Pagan, and we were glad when it finally died out and left the public sphere.

Having enduring that troubling time, now I am reading in the news that a new group of manipulative pundits and politicians, some within the QAnon conspiracy organizations, and some in hard-core conservative news or political organizations are pushing a new and revised version of this nightmare. Although this time the moral panic is also focused on the LGBTQ community as well as the Pagan and Witchcraft communities. Politicians who are liberal or even mildly conservative are being accused of aggressively recruiting children to become queer or engage in occultism, Paganism or Witchcraft. Those of us who are actual members of these communities are seeking to avoid any controversy, knowing all too well what might happen if a new moral panic gripped the nation.

Since the political classes in the U.S. are so polarized, it would seem that a revised Satanic Panic with accusations of ritual abuse, murder and cannibalism would seem to be believed by a significant minority of religiously conservative groups. However, it is also likely that the mainstream media will find such accusations to be completely ridiculous, which will shield the general public from assuming that such accusations are anything but complete nonsense. QAnon has not found much respect or acceptance in the majority of the American public, but if the Republican party regains power in the next two years then all bets are off. We may find ourselves hounded back into the broom closet for most, and real live persecution for those of us who are published or publicly known, like myself.

Frater Barrabbas